


nothing more, nothing less

by charmtion



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22928797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charmtion/pseuds/charmtion
Summary: “Jon is coming with me. He is cominghomewith me.” Sansa lifts her chin, quells the tremble in her jaw with a frown. “I have lost my sister to the seas. My brothers are ashes in the crypts. I will not lose Jon. Icannotlose Jon.” Another slow sweep of her gaze about the blood-red hall. “He is all I have — and I will fight tooth and nail to keep him.”Sansa refuses to obey a king’s command and boards the ship home from King’s Landing — with Jon at her side.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 36
Kudos: 203





	nothing more, nothing less

**Author's Note:**

> > I don’t even watch the show — but how they ended it still pricks my skin and makes me shudder. So here is another little remedy to it that crept up on me this evening: seaspray, a blackwood ship, two hearts (slowly) finding out they share the same beat… ⛵

“He is coming with me.”

Like a flute of ice-cool water, the way her voice slips out. Fills the hollows of the hall as if the walls are riverbanks. Blood-red stone washed clean. There are eyes on her: half a hundred of them. Pricking at her skin like needles. But she does not sway on her feet; gets up from her chair, sweep of her gaze steady as the set of her head, the straight squareness of her shoulders, the cool echoes of her voice still ebbing at the walls. Picks them off — those prying eyes — one by one.

“The king commanded — ”

“I don’t care what the king commanded,” she says quietly as Tyrion bobs open-mouthed as a fish. “Jon is coming with me. He is coming _home_ with me.” Lifts her chin, quells the tremble in her jaw with a frown. “I have lost my sister to the seas. My brothers are ashes in the crypts. I will not lose Jon. I _cannot_ lose Jon.” Another slow sweep of her gaze about the blood-red hall. “He is all I have — and I will fight tooth and nail to keep him.”

Sam shifting, pen in hand. “My lady — ”

“For the love you bear him, be silent.” Sansa lifts her hand: palm out, as peace-keeping a gesture as she can make. “Nothing you say will sway me. Believe it, Samwell Tarly.” Blinks once: slowly, turns a sea-wide gaze onto the hall again. “Believe it, each and every one of you gathered here before me.” Smallest of smiles skating ice-cool on her lips. “You may as well shout your naysaying to the wind. My mind is set… and Jon’s fate decided.”

*

There are grumbles from the council, protests from a handful of lords. It comes as no surprise. Her brother stays silent enough, sitting in his polished chair, hands resting placidly on the smooth-shone arms of ironwood. He brooks no argument, repeats no command, gives no new ruling – makes no move to flutter his fingers in farewell as the family that remain to him quit his new, blood-red home.

Sansa walks in-step with Jon down to the docks. They do not touch; if it were night, there is space enough between them that the stars would shine through it. But it is day — grey and cold and mean — and there are no stars glinting in his gaze, only shadows.

He pauses at the edge of the quay as the ship bobs the waves before them. Rolls his shoulders as if freeing them from the straps of a well-worn pack, a weight, a warped chain of lead and soot and steel. He says nothing — only sighs. Takes her arm without word, sees her up onto the deck before he follows, kicks the gangway loose, turns on his heel, spits into the sea.

If she were not a queen, she would stand and spit beside him. Lets that thought tarry for a moment, bandy as a leaden weight about her ribs. Soft huff of breath through her nose. Takes a step toward the ship’s railing. Shoulder brushing his as she feels the venom for this place blanch her tongue in bitter water. Spits into the sea. Turns to meet the tremor of a smile settling on his lips.

*

“You would have gone to war for me.”

It hangs on the air like a question. Sansa looks at Jon over the brazier, lets him find the answer in her eyes — sees the shift in his face as he spots it. Like tide-lines in the sand smoothing out, the way the furrows fall from his brow. He clears his throat, chases up the echoes of his voice still tarrying on the salt-ice air.

“You stood against the council,” he says, a little softer now. “You said the Northmen would fight to protect me… you said _you_ would fight to keep me.”

“Aye,” she murmurs. “I meant it, too. Mean it still.” Leans a little closer to him, brazier-sparks pooling in the gaze they share. “I mean it always.”

“Why?” he whispers.

For half a heartbeat, she fights the tears thickening her throat. Sprig of sadness blooming between the crooks of her ribs — the way he watches her, bewilderment burning white-hot in his beautiful ink-dark eyes. _Why_. In an instant it hurtles at her, hits her square in the belly. After everything he has lived through, fought through, _breathed_ through — still, he cannot understand why anyone would fight for him, keep him, _love_ him.

“Because you belong with me, Jon.” There is a tremble in her voice; but she lets it be, lets it bleed with the tear winding down her cheek. “In the North… nowhere else.” Closes her eyes as the waves creak against the blackwood body of the ship. “I would fight a war to keep you there. In the North. Safe and sheltered at my side — where you belong.”

*

Halfway home, he finds her hand one eve after dinner. Rasps a thumb across the back of it. Bows his head, stares at the tabletop as he whispers that he is sorry, that he forgives her, that he is not worthy —

“Jon,” she says softly. “For the love you bear me, be silent.”

“Love should never stay the tongue — nor make a man speak falsely.” His voice is as low a rush as the rumble of the sea around them. “I tell it true. I am not worthy. Not of this… not of you.”

She lifts her chin. “You admit it, then.”

“Admit what?”

Glimmer of a star in his ink-dark eyes. “That you have love for me.”

“Sansa.” Low and soft, the way he says it — as if her name is something holy on his tongue. “Did you ever doubt that?” Hiss of air between his teeth as she nods: once, twice. “How could you have ever doubted _that_ , Sansa?”

“There was a time when I doubted it, Jon.” Circles his knuckle with her thumb. “You returned to me a stranger. Like a puppet on a string. It was as if that island burnt the soul right out of you.” Tightens her grip, levels her eyes with his own. “But I was wrong to doubt you. Played the puppet, that much is true… but your soul was there all along. Your love for the North — that, too.”

“Aye,” he murmurs after a moment. “For the North.” Lifts their interlinked fingers, brushes the back of her hand across his lips. “For you, Sansa — that, too.” Ghost of a smile limning his weather-worn cheeks. “That love never dimmed. Believe it.”

Hangs on the air like a question. It is her turn to find the answer shining bright in his gaze. Bloom of starlight behind her eyes when she spots it. She clears her throat, finds her voice, sets it spinning out across the salt-smoke air.

“I do not love you as a brother.”

“I do not love you as a sister.”

“What, then?” she asks quietly. “What are we to be?”

“We have been many things these few years past,” he says gently. “Children.”

“Bastards.”

He nods. “Broken.”

“Bleeding.”

Presses his lips to her hand again. “Soldiers — _survivors_.”

“Spies and shadows. Kings and queens,” she whispers. “What are we now, Jon?”

“We are ourselves,” he murmurs. “Nothing more, nothing less.”

*

_Nothing more, nothing less_.

Children. Bastards. Soldiers. Spies. Cousins. Shadows. Kings and queens… They are one and all and none at all — not here, not _now_. They are themselves: nothing more, nothing less. Skin that carries the salt-taste of the sea-air. Lips that shape softer sounds than either of them has ever felt slipped into their ears. Tongues and teeth and thumbs and fingers — deep, sweet heat and an anchor binding them together tight as tree-roots to the earth.

“ _Sansa_ ,” it is all he can say.

Inside her, to the hilt — her grip on him is warm, silky: a pulse of fire, a spark, a surge, a flush of embers making ribbons of his breath. Her ribs expand in his palms; he notches them between his fingers, clutches down gently as she rocks back and forth with the rhythm of the ship.

Her skin is silver in the moonlight, scars a scatter of scarlet stars etched out upon it — but her eyes are the blue of a winter rose, even here in the salt-and-smoke stain of the sea. He surges up toward their pull, drowns in them as he meets her kiss. Pulls back half a heartbeat later to look into them again. Makes a sound low in his throat.

They are his heart, his home: those blue-wide eyes — nothing more, nothing less. 

*

The city rises like a dream on the horizon. Flutes of woodsmoke. Low, whitewashed houses. Tall towers shining like ivory in the weak winter sunlight. A sept. Lets her eyes settle on the domed roof for a moment; thinks of hymns and crystals, rainbow light and lion’s claws scrabbling a cloak onto her shoulders. Settles her breath, looks away from it: the roof, her memories — the bitter taste of both blanching her tongue with venom.

Does not spit into the sea. There is no need. Jon is at the ship’s railing beside her, his hand resting on the small of her back. Fingers flexing against the curve of her spine. Taste of him bandying with the seaspray on her lips. Leans into the warmth of his body as the ship cuts through the swell, sails toward the city.

“White Harbor,” he says softly. “Soon we will be back to Winterfell.”

Nods her head where it rests upon his shoulder. “Home… soon we will be _home_.”

She sees it soon as her eyes slip closed: a fleeting glimpse. Grey walls. White snow. A direwolf snarling on the battlements. Ironwoods and sentinels standing guard in the godswood; the deep, black pool with nary a ripple stirring across its glassy surface. Torchlight in the crypts. Blue rose-petals blanketing the laps of the stone statues that rest there in the dark. Their blood, their pack, their stones, their hills and halls — their _home_.

“Home,” he murmurs half a heartbeat later. “Your home… mine, too.”

It hangs on the air like a question. She lifts her cheek away from the fur-trimmed collar of his cloak, meets his gaze. Lets him find the answer in her eyes. There is an eagle in her chest, she is sure of it — the way her heart swoops high as the ivory towers of the harbour to see the shadows fade from his eyes, the stars shining bright in those ink-dark depths. Leans toward their light, presses her brow tight to his own.

“Our home,” she says softly. “ _Our_ s, Jon.”

“Ours,” he whispers. “I believe it.”

Smooths the dark hair back behind his ear, runs her thumb the rise of his cheekbone. Looks into his eyes and believes it. Him. Them. What it is they are to be. Knows it in her heart. Knows that she will ride beside him through the greystone gates. Knows that she will stay there at his side for as long as time is not ash.

Closes her eyes, catches it: a fleeting glimpse. Their hands bound by kiss and cloak and oath as they stand amongst the heart tree’s crooked roots with the light of the gods pouring down upon them through silver-grey branches, blood-red leaves. His kiss landing on her lips light as a snowflake. A crown on her brow, a babe in her belly. Children — _their_ children chasing sunlight instead of shadows. Jon at her side: then, now — _always_.

Opens her eyes, gazes at him: taste of the future some sprig of spring blooming honey-sweet upon her tongue.

Wind whips up around them as the ship rolls toward White Harbor; steals the words from her lips, the warmth from her fingers.

It does not matter.

He is an ember wrapped round her: arm an anchor sheltering her beneath his cloak — and there is no need for words.

Her mind is set. Her fate decided.

 _Their_ fate… that, too.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> A picset for this _may_ appear on [tumblr](https://charmtion.tumblr.com/) sometime soon. Till then, thank you so much for reading; feel free to leave a comment if you are here/enjoyed it — I **always** reply! ❤️


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